Chapter 47

Chapter 47

Chimera

“Ugh...”

My head throbbed.

“Where is this?”

Cold chill was rising from the stone floor touching my cheek.

After coming to my senses, I reached out to brace myself against the floor, but my arms would not move as I wished.

When I turned my head to check, my arms had been pulled behind my back and were bound tightly with rope.

I immediately lifted my head from the floor where I had been lying face down and checked my surroundings.

“Zeto was telling the truth.”

Around me, young women were tied with ropes like me, huddled together in one corner and trembling.

Suddenly, the sound of footsteps descending the stairs came, and soon two men could be seen coming down into this room.

“Looking closely, hasn’t your horn gotten bigger?”

“Huh, it really has?”

They approached this way while snickering over that conversation.

One of them had an unnatural right arm with green skin, and on the crown of the other man’s head... there was some kind of horn.

“A chimera...?”

I knew that chimeras using humans as subjects were illegal.

“Judging by the green skin and bulky muscles, that looks like an orc’s arm... and what is that horn...?”

Whatever the case, they blatantly had body parts from monsters, not humans, attached to themselves.

“When I approached the girl we brought earlier to kidnap her, it stood straight up! I’ve never seen the horn react this much before!”

The man with the horn on his head made a fuss, stroking his horn with both hands.

Soon, he noticed that I had awakened and laughed in a vile voice.

“This is her. She’s awake already, hehehe...”

“No way. With that body, she’s still a virgin...? Hey, did you bring in a noble?”

The gaze of the man with the orc arm slammed down toward my chest, and he grew frightened in advance.

“Hey, idiot, I’ve memorized all the nearby noble brats’ faces. Even if she were a traveling noble, would she walk the night streets alone without a single knight?”

The man with the horn said this while patting the shoulder of the man with the orc arm.

Soon, the man with the orc arm nodded and accepted his words.

“Whoa... Look at this, look at this. It’s reacting even now. Hehehe...”

“Ooh...!”

The man with the horn positioned himself in front of me where I had fallen, bent his knees, and pointed to his horn with both fingers. Soon, the man with the orc arm looked at the horn and let out an exclamation.

“Damn it, how nice would it be if I’d gotten a special monster like a unicorn too... Why an orc, an orc...”

The man with the orc arm grumbled while rotating his right arm, the orc’s arm.

“So that horn was a unicorn horn...”

They had a chimera fitted with a unicorn’s horn.

Judging from the circumstances, it seemed to be for offering the virgin blood that vampires liked best.

“Hey, but the boss told us never to touch the women, didn’t he?”

“Yeah. Otherwise there’s no point in me going to all this effort to pick out virgins and bring them here. If Lord Varsium drinks the blood and realizes she isn’t a virgin, we’re all finished.”

“So here’s what I’m saying...”

The man with the orc arm stretched the corners of his mouth into a lewd grin, said something meaningful, and approached me.

“...Couldn’t I at least touch her tits? Look at that size... Hehehe...”

Eventually, the man with the orc arm drooled and tried reaching toward my chest.

“He’s lost his mind.”

I had no intention of letting that filthy, ugly hand touch my chest.

I could have undone the rope long ago.

I was planning to undo it and land one blow right before his hand touched my chest.

It was then.

The man with the unicorn horn suddenly grabbed his arm and stopped him.

“You crazy bastard! Can’t you tell from the horn’s reaction? This girl is pure, overwhelming virginity itself! If you fondle her chest and contaminate her even a little? The blood will taste worse. I’ve experienced my horn growing weaker more than once or twice because bastards like you touched women...”

The man with the orc arm, after having his arm grabbed, whipped his head around and glared at the horned man.

“Fuck... I said I’d only touch a little. Why are you making such a damn fuss...!”

At that moment, the man with the orc arm punched the horned man in the face.

—Thwack!!

Perhaps because the arm attached to the man’s right side was still an orc’s arm, the horned man’s body flew away and crashed into the wall.

“Ugh...”

The man with the orc arm turned his head and looked at me.

“Hihihik...!”

Drooling as he laughed like a madman, his gaze was fixed on my chest.

“I need to undo the rope now.”

I could deal with them sufficiently with only my bare fists.

It was thanks to Grandfather, who had taught me some martial arts as well, saying a swordsman had to consider every situation.

The moment that green arm tried to reach toward me and I was about to undo the rope.

—Slice!

“Huh...?”

The sound of something being cut came, and then a bright red line appeared on the neck of the man with the orc arm, who had let out a stupid sound.

“Grrk... kk...”

Drops of blood gathered on the red line, and soon his head fell.

As his head dropped, I could feel the women trembling behind me grow horrified. Yet not one of them screamed.

“This is... Zeto’s...”

Soon, the sound of hurried footsteps came from the direction of the stairs.

The man with white bandages around his eyes rushed toward me and cut the rope binding my wrists.

There was blood on Zeto’s sword.

If that had followed a principle similar to sword aura, there should have been no blood on it.

The more I learned, the less I could grasp what principle his swordsmanship used.

“I was late because I came in quietly....I am sorry.”

With a sincere voice, Zeto apologized to me as he handed me the sword he had been carrying at his waist.

“...It’s fine. Nothing happened.”

Perhaps from the moment his absurd words became truth, I might already have felt it faintly.

...In other words, perhaps everything had been my misunderstanding and delusion.

After receiving my sword from Zeto, I drew it and approached the horned man lying sprawled after crashing into the wall.

Judging by his eyes, it seemed he had already accepted his death.

***

By following Kaen, I was able to learn the location of their base.

I had secretly infiltrated the base and come to the prison to hand Kaen her sword.

Strangely, the prison door was open, so I quickly descended the stairs. When I saw some man drooling as he approached Kaen, I sensed at once that the situation was not good and immediately used Rebellion Against Heaven.

I remembered that originally, he had been guarding the prison entrance, not coming all the way inside.

Rebellion Against Heaven still consumed far too much mana.

Besides, it was not good to rely on Rebellion Against Heaven too much.

“I should not use Rebellion Against Heaven anymore today.”

This sort of real combat experience was important to me.

“To think I can die by the hand of a perfect virgin... Hehe...”

—Stab.

Kaen’s sword pierced the heart of the man with the unicorn horn.

“Urgh...”

Soon, a great deal of blood gushed from the area around his left chest.

“Does becoming a chimera make even the mind similar to that monster’s?”

As I watched that and pondered something useless, Kaen soon approached me after shaking the blood from her sword, and spoke with her face red.

“D-don’t mind what he said! It was pointless!”

I nodded to Kaen, then calmly explained the situation to the people imprisoned in the cells.

“It will not take very long... I will definitely return.”

There were quite a few people, so with only two of us, it would be difficult to get them all outside to safety at once.

It seemed wiser to completely clean this place up and then send them out.

I left the prison with Kaen, speaking with her as we went.

The area around the prison had already been cleared. Throughout the passage, the corpses of those cut down without even a single scream could be seen here and there.

“Are all of the people here ‘chimeras’...?”

Kaen, glancing at the corpses as we walked through the passage, asked me quietly.

“...At the very least, they did not seem to be ordinary humans.”

“Um, and... I found out the name of the vampire connected to them.”

Kaen suddenly stopped walking and grabbed my arm, speaking with serious eyes.

Was it because she realized my words had been true? Before I knew it, she was cooperating very earnestly.

“What is the vampire’s name?”

“...Varsium. It goes without saying, but it was a name I had never heard before.”

“Varsium...”

I repeated the vampire’s name for no reason.

Varsium.

That was the name of the vampire who led this criminal organization full of chimeras, beings combining humans and monsters.

Since he was the one who had turned the people here into chimeras, I thought he must possess an ability related to this.

However, since he had never shown himself even in the game, I had no intention of facing him as well.

Varsium was a high-ranking vampire.

He was no easy opponent, and in the game, Varsium had never noticed this place had been raided and attacked the player.

It was simple and clear.

I only needed to kill every enemy in this place without leaving a single one.

As for the women imprisoned here, even Varsium would have no way to know who had been here.

So there would be no witnesses left in this place.

Kaen and I walked through the passage and stood before the stairs leading upward.

“If we go up here, the enemies will be gathered there. If combat seems too difficult, you may leave midway. You have already done more than enough for your assigned role.”

“Hmph, saying that now? Just tell me if there is anyone we need to keep alive.”

Kaen snorted at my words and spoke in a firm voice.

“I do not think there is any need to extract more information. We should only need to clean up this place.”

The moment my words ended, Kaen went up the stairs first.

When I followed her up the stairs, I saw a huge hall filled with people who had all sorts of monster body parts dangling from them.

“...What the hell are those?”

“Why are they out of the prison?”

“Hey, call the others!”

When they saw me and Kaen holding swords, they sensed the situation was not good.

Kaen and I answered their questions with our blades.

Blood began spraying here and there, and the screams of enemies echoed throughout the hall.

As I cut down the one in front of me, who had a gremlin’s nose, with a diagonal slash, I asked Kaen.

“Do the other Class C students fight as well as Miss Kaen?”

Kaen, over there, was trampling the enemies with swift movements.

Fortunately, Kaen was not taking out the Sword Saint’s swordsmanship. It was just as I had seen in the game: if the opponent was not too difficult to beat, she did not draw out the Sword Saint’s swordsmanship.

Kaen slid across the floor while avoiding attacks and charged in, cutting through the enemies’ ankles horizontally.

“...Then do the other Class A students use absurdly bizarre swordsmanship like you?”

Soon, Kaen rose and threw my words back at me.

She meant that neither side was ordinary, so we should let it pass.

“Aaaagh—!!”

“Save me, save me!!”

Soon, the agonized groans of those whose ankles she had severed reached me.

“What’s going on?!”

Suddenly, a huge man appeared on the second floor of the hall and shouted loudly.

The huge man standing while gripping the second-floor railing had his whole body covered in gargoyle skin that looked sturdy at a glance, and he carried a large, long double-headed axe resting against his shoulder.

“...What is that now?”

Kaen lightly cut off an enemy’s head, spotted the huge man, and muttered that.

“Boss! These bastards aren’t ordinary...!”

The man who shouted this while looking at the huge man had his neck cut by my sword, and his cry could not continue to the end.

I could not remember his name, but I was certain he was the leader of this organization.

“I will face him.”

I said this to Kaen while shaking the blood that coated my sword onto the floor.

I could yield the others, but I could not hand over the boss’s experience to Kaen.